Reflection Of My First Five Weeks

My first five weeks at Florida State having been amazing, I love it here. At first I was scared that I would get homesick and hate being so far from home. But, luckily, that never happened, I have made a lot of new friends that have helped me through my summer here. College homework is much different then in high school. I wasn’t use to doing work outside of class, but I was able to manage this change. I spent a lot of time studying and doing homework in Strozier Library; I found it easier to study there without the distractions in my dorm room. Since the summer is so short and everything is due so fast, I was stressed at first. I learnt really fast that procrastinating was a bad idea. Feeding myself wasn’t bad since I have a meal plan. Even though the food is not too great, it’s easy enough to just walk down there and get something to eat. The first time doing my laundry was a challenge. I had never done laundry at home except washing sheets. I was grateful that I had my roommate there to help me; even though the washing machine did overflow the first time. The first few weeks we went to bed really late and paid for it the next day. We soon learnt that this was not a good idea and taught ourselves to fix our sleeping schedule. I did find out that being around friends all the time, lets you see the real them. One of my good friends didn’t adjust as well to college as I did. Being here let me see the real her and I realized that I can’t be around her for a long time. This was an unfortunate start to my summer, loosing a good friend. But, I’ve meet so many new people that I didn’t let this bring me down. I am now so excited for fall and I know that coming to Florida State was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Today I mostly feel sleepy and not fully awake yet. I feel as if I could fall right back to sleep right now. This morning when my alarm went off and I rolled out of bed and felt like I had been hit by a truck. All of my energy is completely drained from my body. My eyelids feel like they weigh ten pounds and I can barely keep them open. Right now I’m just getting over a cold so I don’t feel one hundred percent, but having a good night sleep did help. The summer semester is coming to an end so I’m busy with school work and just ready to finish up all my courses. I am trying to work on a better work motive because lately, all I’m feeling is lazy and undetermined. Hopefully this will all change soon and I will be back to my normal self.

Paper 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_nonfiction

For my third paper, I want to write a creative nonfiction. This link tells how a creative nonfiction is a true story written in a way that reads like a fiction. Writing a creative nonfiction lets me write about a true event, but allows me to be creative with it. I plan to tell a story about a day from my past but change it up a little to make it more interesting and easier from the reader to read. A day trip that I took a few weeks ago stands out to me. I think I am leaning toward writing about it and how it effected my perspective of life.

Reflection

When I first walked into this English 1101 class, I was nowhere close to the writer that I now am. This English class has taught me many different skills and techniques. One of the first things that I started doing is prewriting. When teachers talked about this in High School I didn’t think that it was important and would usually skip over that step. Now since in college we are assigned lengthy papers, prewriting is an important step to writing a paper. Before I start to write, I now, write down all my ideas on a piece of paper, usually in cluster form. I look back to this paper for help during my entire writing process. The story that we read in class “Shitty First Drafts” helped me a lot because now I know that my first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s easier to write down everything first and then revise later and decided what to keep and what to take out. In high school, I usually only wrote one draft and that was the one that I turned in. I was never taught before, that writing multiple numbers of drafts could help you. This has definitely helped my papers. I now rewrite parts of my paper over and over until I’m sure that it’s perfect. Once I finish writing and am close to being complete, I go through the entire paper once again. I check each individual sentence to make sure that the structure is right and if there is anything that I could change to simplify. I had never heard of simplifying my sentences before this class and taking out unneeded words has helped clean up my compositions. After I do this, I then ask a friend to go through the paper and check for any grammatical airs that I might have missed. My paper is then complete! This class has helped me so much with writing, which I know will help me in all my future classes here at FSU.

Recent Death of Stacy Lynn Putnam

Stacy Lynn Putnam, age 84, passed away last Sunday, July 17th, peacefully in her sleep. Doctors think it was a heart attack which killed her. She was a beloved sister, mother, grandmother and wife. She was the mother of three children. Her funeral will be held this Sunday at 11:00am at First Baptist Church of Naples. She was an accomplished Lawyer who helped many people during her career. She worked at a large firm in Naples, Florida for 35 years. She will be greatly missed, but her memory will remain in the hearts of many. Condolences will be gratefully received.

My Masterpiece

As I sat on the potters wheel, I was finally ready to start my new project, which I had been putting of for days. I threw down the perfectly weighted piece of moisten stoneware. After centering the clay, I brought up the walls and the shape of my vase started coming together. I continued to perfect my piece of artwork for over an hour. When I finished, it was exactly what I pictured. It was about seven inches tall and five inches wide, making it the biggest thing I had ever thrown. I cut the foot of the vase and left it overnight to dry. The next day I came back to the pottery room and saw my perfect vase sitting there ready to be fired. It being stoneware meant that I could gaze the vase instead of painting it. I chose the most beautiful colors to dip it in; sea mist and fog. I, personally, set my piece into the kiln, not trusting anyone else to put it in there. The firing process took a few days so I had to be patient and wait. A few days later I came into the room and saw my vase. It was the most exquisite thing I had ever seen and I loved it. It never thought I would have been able to make something as beautiful as I did. I couldn’t wait for my family to see it. This was artwork. I think of art as something that you create from nothing. Something that comes from inside of you. Art means so much to me, it’s a way of expressing yourself other then by using words. By looking at someone’s art you can tell much about a person because the art came from deep inside them. Art allows a person to be as creative and open-minded that they can without anyone judging them. Some people live their life through art. The world would not be beautiful as it is without artists.

The Monster In My Head

Silently hiding in the back of my head is where my monster lives. He's waiting there, anxious to criticize my writing. He is a monster that I can't get rid of. He looks like a troll with crazy eyes, which i am frightened by. Sometimes he is kind enough to sit back and not bother me for a while. This is his way that he helps me, leaving me to write what I think and make up my own ideas. When he tries to "criticize me" it prevents me from writing. His help is not wanted from me. He is a brain eating monster that I want out of my head.

Naples, FL

I was born in Southwest Florida in a city called Naples. Naples is know for all the people that come and retire there. This means that the people that live there are from all over the United States, so it's filled people with different customs of speech. The common speech is a melting pot. Everywhere you look you see older retired people from different background and if you would ask them where they are from, none of them would say Naples. They all speak slow using every accent possible.

Miss Understood

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was just walking around, window-shopping at the Waterside Mall. This is one of my favorite things to do on a beautiful, sunny, summer day. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone in the flashiest clothes I had ever seen. I made a double take at her. From top to bottom she was dressed completely in bright, pink, sequenced clothing. She had on the highest stilettos and I couldn’t fathom how she was able to walk so gracefully in them. I would have guessed that she was around the age of twenty-five years old and most likely exceedingly wealthy. The amount of shopping bags she had in her hands was countless. The names sprawled across the bags read Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, etc. I watched as she continued to strut down the mall pathway and disappear into Tiffany Co. I felt like that moment had just been a scene from a movie and I couldn’t help think that I had seen that lady before.
I continued shopping by myself for a while. Later, I saw her again. She was in Nordstrom with more bags than before. She must have had over twenty bags! This time she didn’t look so stunning. She was sitting on a bench inside with her freshly manicured fingers covering her face. I swear I saw a teardrop fall down her face, but it had to have been my imagination. As I quietly walked over next to her I saw that I was right, she had been crying. Her mascara and eyeliner were running down her face and she looked like a mess. I sat on a seat across from her but she didn’t even look up at me. Another girl, about the same age and not as ridiculously dressed, sat down next to her and handed her a tissue. I kept quiet and tried to listen to their conversation. The one in bright pink was now balling her eyes out. Through the sobbing I could only make out a few things she was saying. “Shopping is the only way I can keep my spirit high these days”, she said. After eavesdropping for a few minuets, I comprehended that her drug addict father just passed away from an overdose. She was completely distraught over this. Before I had envied her and now I felt bad for her. What seemed to be a flawless movie character on the outside turned out to be a scared, misunderstood individual on the inside.

Family

This picture represents the love and support that my family has given to me throughout my life. They have helped make me who I am. My family stands there, hands in mine. Tears are about to start flowing down my face. I know that my family is right next to me, ready to give me help that I need to help me through this hard time in my life. They will never let me fall, they are the rock in my life.

Walk Down Jennie Murphree Hall

I turn to quitely lock the door behind me, trying not to wake my slumbering roommate, who's snores I could still faintly hear. The hot air in the hallyway hits me, compared to my ice cold room I just left. I start to walk down the moldy smelling hall of Jennie Murphree. From the other rooms, I hear alarm clocks going off and some girls already bickering at the break of dawn. As I continue to walk I see other people leaving their rooms as well, probably leaving to class or going to eat breakfast. As I get closer to the end of the hall I see my Room Advisor and I wave. She smiles back and I walk a few more steps to reach the door. I open the door and I squint from the bright sun. I let the door shut behind me and off to English class I go.

How To Write

All three of these essays have told stories of how each of the writers had things that they had to overcome to succeed as a writer. These stories helped tell how to become a good writer. Each of them had things that got in the way, which could have potentially stopped them from becoming the writer that they are. Everything that these writers have been through and failed at actually has helped them.

In Anne Lamott’s essay, “Shitty First Drafts”, she explains how every writer starts by writing a first draft, which is usually not too great. Once they write that work, they continue by transforming it into an amazing paper. They start out with a bunch of ideas and go through many revisions until their finall draft. People think that good writers can sit down and write and have the most beautiful things flow out onto paper, but that is not normally the case. She also had to overcome her fear of what the readers were going to think of her work, just like the other authors did. Before reading this essay, I never knew how common bad first drafts were. I thought it was just me and my bad writing skills. Now I realize that it’s normal and that makes me more confortable with my writing now.

In Lorrie Moore’s essay, “How to Become a Writer”, she tells of her experiences becoming the writer that she is now. She dealt with people’s criticism and with people, pretty much, telling her that she was crazy. Many people tried to discourage her from becoming a writer, including her own mother and teachers. She had a lot of failure and dispiriting things that affected her. But through it all she continued writing, how and what she wanted. Now getting upset from a high school teacher not liking my way of writing doesn’t seem as such a big deal. I’ll now be more able to express my own way of writing.

In Gail Godwin’s essay, “The Watcher at the Gates”, she talks about how her “inner critic” was influencing her work and how it tried to restrain her. She had these wonderful envisions of her stories, but before she could express herself she had to free herself from the critic. To do this she did things like disguising what she was writing and got to know her “Watcher”. I hope to never have my ideas blocked by my inner self.